Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1885-1890, 1887-01-22
a o INDIANS.
Major Baldwin. of the B!ackfeet Tells
How They are Getting Along
Toward Civilization.


A feshy, ruddy and very active man
about the lobby Of the Grand Central yes.
terday says the I83eoeadaaf. was Major
Baldwin. agent of the Blackfees indians
ii northern Montana. He came down
from his post Of duty expecting to proceed
to Washington, but 0 hopes that he has
made such arrangements by telegraph as
will preclude the necessity for the eastern
trip. As his family is sick at the agency
he is very anxious to return to them.
Major Baldwin says his Indians-the
Blackfeet, Piegans and Bloods, who are
practically one tribe-are in good condi-
ton and lave made a fair start toward
civilization. They recognize that their
old life Of living by hunting, fishing and
horse stealing is past, and that they must
conform to the ordinary conditions Of life,
They have already made some start in the
way of farming and during the past season
raised quite a nice crop. Major Baldwin
thinks that next year fully a hundred of
them will be occupying permanent homes
segregated from the teepe Villages, while
more of them will harvest crops for their
are disintegrating and they are beginning
to live in a way tending to self support.
AS to their moral condition he says he
found them much addicted to drunkenness
and able to obtain abundance of whiskey.
BY the appointment of an efficient Indian
police, the vigorous pursuit and punish
ment of drunken Indians and the destruc-
ton of large quantities of whiskey he has
cot matters into such shape that for six
months past not a drunken Indian has
been seen on the reservation. In the mat
ter of horse stealing, Major Baldwin says
they have been much more m~isrepresent-
ed during the past year. Up to the 25th
day of last September his Indians made
nc raids and stole no horses. On that date
the Grows raided that camp and took goo
horses. Then it was impossible to hold
them and they sent out parties who
brought in a total of about 40 horses.
These were taken from them, aportlon re-
turned to owners, upon notification, and
the balance held at the agency awaiting
claimants. But the Blaekfeet never got
back their 200 horses. Once a band OF
Piegans, travelling northward with a lot OF
stolen Grow horses, were set a-foot in the
Judith Basin by a pursuing party and stole
enough white mems horses to take them
home. The soldiers followed them to the
agency where the horses were returned
and the thieves arrested, and foul OF them
are now in Jail at Lewistown awaiting trial.
The depredations made upon Crows and
white men, before the 25th of September,
Major Baldwin believes to have been Can
adam Bloods, and their identity in customs,
dress and language with the Blackfeet
tribes, and the fact that they live north
would give color to the assumption that
they were Montana Blackfeet. As to the
reduction of their reservation, Major Bald
win says there is no doubt but that the
commission soon to visit them will effect
it. The reduction will be to an area of
about forty to fifty miles in the western
part of the present reservation. The In
dians may perhaps demand that St. Mary's
lake be left to them for fishing purposes.
They are very willing to part with the
major portion Of their reservation, as they
realize that it is practically useless to them
and that some money with which to buy
stock, seed and farming implements is of
greatest value. Polygamy is still rife
among the Blackfeet, though they are be-
ginning to abandon it-that is to say, take
more plural wives. In buffalo times,
when more wives means more buffalo
hides tanned in a given time, was the
palmy days OF polygamy. Now, however,
they find that more than one wife is a bur
den, and are not inclined to increase the
number.
Major Baldwin likes his novel life, and
is evidently much interested in improving
the condition of Indians under his charge.
NhDfTIER